Heat withdraws qualifying offers to Cole Swider, Alondes Williams. What it means for them and roster

Cole Swider and Alondes Williams ended last season as Miami Heat two-way contract players and entered free agency this summer as restricted free agents.

But Swider and Williams are now unrestricted free agents after the Heat withdrew its qualifying offers to both of them Thursday. They are now eligible to sign a two-way contract or standard contract outright with any other NBA team.

As of Thursday, Swider and Williams remain with the Heat’s summer league team, which opens Las Vegas Summer League action on Saturday against the Boston Celtics.

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Swider and Williams can also still return to the Heat for next season, as they remain eligible to sign a new contract (two-way or standard deal) with Miami. But the Heat would likely need to waive a player to bring back Swider and/or Williams, whether it’s on a two-way or standard contract.

With 14 players signed to standard contracts for next season, the Heat’s roster remains one short of the regular-season limit of 15 players under standard contracts. But the Heat is expected to open this upcoming regular season with 14 players on standard deals — which is permitted by NBA rules — because of its salary-cap crunch.

Adding a 15th player to a fully guaranteed standard contract to reach the regular-season roster limit prior to the start of the regular season would push the Heat above the punitive second apron, which Miami does not intend to cross during the 2024-25 NBA calendar unless it’s to acquire an All-Star talent.

Along with no longer having room under the second apron to sign Swider or Williams to fill the 15th spot on its standard roster, the Heat’s three two-way contract slots are also currently filled with Keshad Johnson, Zyon Pullin and Dru Smith.

Since going undrafted out of Syracuse in 2022, most of Swider’s playing time in his first two NBA seasons has come in the G League.

In Swider’s first season with the Heat last season, he logged a total of just 87 minutes in the NBA. But he averaged 24.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game in 21 appearances for the Heat’s G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

Swider, 25, established himself as one of the G League’s top three-point shooters, shooting 47.1 percent on 10 three-point attempts per game last season with the Skyforce. Among the 10 players in the G League who finished last season averaging 10 or more three-point attempts per game, Swider finished with the top three-point percentage.

Most of Williams’ first two NBA seasons have also been spent in the G League after going undrafted out of Wake Forest in 2022.

Williams, 25, signed a two-way contract with the Heat midway through last season in February. He played in just seven games for the Heat last season, but also impressed in the G League with 20.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, 7.1 assists and 1.3 steals per game in 43 appearances for the Skyforce.

During the Heat summer league team’s three-game run in the California Classic in recent days, Swider averaged 19 points per game on 9-of-16 (56.3 percent) shooting from three-point range in two appearances. Williams averaged 10.7 points, five rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.3 steals per game while shooting 32.5 percent from the field and 3 of 13 (23.1 percent) on threes in three appearances.

The Heat withdrew its qualifying offers to Swider and Williams ahead of Saturday’s league-wide deadline for NBA teams to unilaterally withdraw such an offer from a player.